


on with the show

by viirago



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:01:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27792715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viirago/pseuds/viirago
Summary: "So," He says eventually, because he's never been comfortable with the quiet, "anyone ever told you that you'd be good with a baton?"Hermione stops writing all together to snap her head up at Dean, her face scrunched up as if she didn't realise he'd been there beside her the whole time. "Pardon?"
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Dean Thomas
Comments: 5
Kudos: 32





	on with the show

Seamus asked Dean once if he had any interesting relatives. The topic came about when Seamus was complaining about one of his uncles, recounting a story about an Uncle Martin who did something that Dean definitely hadn't been listening to at the time. Dean had to take a moment to think about it properly, because he was sure he _did_ have interesting relatives, it's just that he was pretty sure Seamus' standards for interesting weren't exactly the same as his.

"I have a cousin, Madeline. She was a baton twirler." He said eventually. In truth, Dean hadn't thought about his cousin Madeline much at all, and even during the annual family gatherings that his mother forced him to attend, he'd never really spoken to her before. But he remembered vividly one Christmas day, when he was five and she was seven, when one of his aunts had managed to coax Madeline into performing something for all of them, and the moment she had pulled the baton out and gave it a spin, he had been transfixed.

Of course, by the time he was nine and he'd seen Madeline do the same routine for so many years in a row, the novelty had worn off.

That moment had made its impact though, the memory of it still fresh in his mind even when he was at eleven and a half and in Hogwarts surrounded by _magic_ and other impossible things.

Seamus obviously had no idea what a baton twirler was, though, and so Dean tried his best to explain it. But Dean had never known much about baton twirling himself, and so when he said _she spins a stick around in her hand,_ Seamus looked entirely unimpressed. Dean just shrugged then, not bothered trying to go into any more detail, or even trying to explain it any clearer. He thought to himself that it would probably just be one of those muggle things none of his friends could understand, and that was fine, really, it wasn't as if he cared much for baton twirling himself anyway.

*

Dean doesn't think about Madeline and her baton for a good couple years, and then fifth year happens.

Umbridge is making herself useful by being completely useless, and so Dean's spending the Defence period with his eyes wandering, knowing that if he spent a second longer trying to read his textbook he'd simply fall asleep, and the last thing he wants is a detention with the toad.

When his eyes land on Hermione, they stop there and they don't move again. There's nothing particularly interesting about the back of her head, but his eyes zero in on her left hand, and the wand in it. Her right hand is scribbling away, jotting down notes too fast for Dean to comprehend, and her left hand, her left hand is twirling her wand between her fingers with an ease that feels so strangely familiar to him.

Dean watches carefully, his eyes tracing the movement of the circles she makes with her wand, wondering if it's his imagination or if she's actually beginning to spin it faster the longer she goes. This goes on for about ten minutes, before Umbridge is leaning over Hermione and coughing lightly and asking her why she has her wand in her hand when she's made it explicitly clear that there were to be _no_ wands out in her class.

Hermione pauses, her wand stilling between her fingers. Then she turns up to Umbridge, smiling hollowly and giving her wand one last dramatic, defying twirl, before putting it down and going back to ignoring Umbridge all together.

For a moment Dean is tempted to laugh, but the moment Umbridge starts to titter in offence at Hermione's actions, he's suddenly hit by the memory of Madeline and her baton twirling performances at Christmas every year. The familiarity he sensed earlier in Hermione's actions make some sense now, and he wonders if Hermione's ever dabbled in the art of baton twirling herself. An image pops into his mind, of a young Hermione in a flashy sequence leotard throwing a baton in the air and spinning around and _that_ actually does end up making him laugh.

Umbridge, of course, immediately picks up on the sound, and goes from glaring at Hermione to glaring at Dean.

 _Bugger,_ he thinks, just as Umbridge spits out, _Detention!_

*

When Dean shows up for detention, Hermione is already in the room, looking tense sitting in the arm chair across the desk from Umbridge.

He makes his way to the arm chair next to Hermione, trying his best to seem nonchalant and not like Seamus had warned him just five minutes ago that this might actually _hurt._

Umbridge is wearing a sickly sweet smile on her face when she tells the both of them that they'll be writing lines tonight, and then hands them each a quill that Dean thinks looks perfectly regular. Then she tells them each what to write, before watching with glee as Hermione and Dean both etch different sets of words onto their own skin. The pain is, if he's honest, not that bad, but he flinches like it's the worst thing he's ever experienced anyway, knowing that that's probably what Umbridge was looking for.

She leaves the room eventually, when it seems she's gotten enough of watching Dean and Hermione repeatedly cut their skin open, and then Dean is leaning back and slouching into his chair, even as his hand continues to write the lines, knowing that just because she was out of the room he couldn't simply stop.

"So," He says eventually, because he's never been comfortable with the quiet, "anyone ever told you that you'd be good with a baton?"

Hermione stops writing all together to snap her head up at Dean, her face scrunched up as if she didn't realise he'd been there beside her the whole time. "Pardon?"

Dean stops writing at this point too, pulling out his wand to balance between his fingertips. "Y'know about baton twirling, yeah? I had a cousin who did it, and when you do that thing with your wand," at this point he tries to imitate her wand twirling, even though he can't do it nearly as fast and his wand almost slips from his fingers, "it reminds me a lot of what she used to do with her baton."

For one long moment, Hermione doesn't say a word, seemingly so surprised she can't form a coherent thought. Dean is still attempting to spin his wand between his fingers like Hermione could, like Madeline did with her baton, and grins at Hermione every time his wand clatters to the floor.

After about his fifth attempt, Hermione finally blinks and snaps out of her stupor, looking at Dean suddenly as if she'd never really seen him before. He stops with his wand at this point, the clear gaze in her eyes unnerving him just a bit.

"No one's ever told me that before, no." Hermione says eventually, looking like she thought it was a bit funny that Dean had even brought it up. "Though I suppose it's always good to hear that I might have some sort of a hidden talent."

Dean nods, feeling somewhat embarrassed now. "You should give a try then. Would be a good party trick."

They say nothing more to each other after that, and simply get back to writing their lines and pretending they weren't bleeding onto the paper and the desk. When Umbridge returns an hour later and Dean feels he's lost most of the feeling on his left hand, she smirks at the state Dean and Hermione are in and then sends them off with a warning not to repeat their behaviour in class.

Dean complains about Umbridge and his hand the whole way back to the Gryffindor common room, and though Hermione doesn't say a single thing to his complaints, she huffs a laugh when he cracks a joke at the expense of Umbridge and her less than flattering wardrobe, and Dean grins victoriously until they separate at the stairs.

*

Surprisingly, Hermione begins to make a game out of it.

Dean suspects its her frayed nerves from having to deal with an entire term of Umbridge that's finally made her snap. Or not snap, per se, but to do something that's definitely not Hermione like at all. Defence gets _boring,_ and Hermione, who's no doubt already figured Umbrdige's habits out and knows exactly when she's not paying her any attention, begins to do _tricks._

Nothing extravagant, at first, to begin with it was mostly just the same kind of twirling she'd been doing before. And then one day while Dean's watching her spin her wand around idly, she tosses it, just a few centimetres, and then catches it and continues spinning as if she hasn't done anything out of the ordinary. Dean jerks into action then, back straightening and eyes narrowing at the back of Hermione's head.

She does turn around eventually, and when spotting Dean, does another little toss, her wand spinning in the air before it lands expertly between her fingers. Dean almost laughs when Harry hisses from beside Hermione _What are you doing?!_

It only ever happens during their Defence period, never during any other class, as if Hermione's hatred for Umbridge was driving her to make a show out of it. Dean wouldn't be surprised if Hermione's already read a few books on baton twirling by now, because her tricks start getting more and more complicated. At one point she puts her quill down, politely asks Harry for his wand, and then begins twirling his wand in one hand and her own in the other. Only a handful of other people have noticed at this point, and Ron always looks mildly amused and mildly horrified, but Harry's always stifling his laughter into his sleeve, and Dean, well, Dean begins his own game.

He didn't want to make it _too_ easy for her, after all, what was the fun in that? So he starts trying to distract her while she does her little show, sometimes throwing paper airplanes at her in hopes of making her fumble, other times charming the ends of her hair to float in front of her face and cover her eyes. No matter what he did though, Hermione never once dropped her wand, always smirking at him triumphantly when they exit the classroom at the end of the period.

Dean is only that much more resolved to finally win their unofficial little game.

*

Almost inevitably, Dean and Hermione end up in detention again. 

Dean isn't really sure who's fault it is, just that they were up to their usual shenanigans during Defence, except this time Umbridge managed to catch Hermione mid wand toss and Dean mid paper airplane throw. Hermione still managed to catch her wand perfectly even though Umbridge had started yelling in her face at that point, and then Dean had changed the directory of his paper airplane and it landed on the side of Umbridge's head instead.

Really he had kind of thought it would've happened earlier.

So when Hermione is sitting beside him later that night in Umbridge's office, grumbling under her breath and glaring at him even as she writes her lines, he laughs. His hand is mostly numb again and the hand holding his quill is beginning to tremble, but he laughs anyway.

Hermione sets her quill down with an impatient _thwack_ as she kicks at Dean's chair leg. "Stop laughing. Honestly!"

"Sorry. 'S just funny, is all. You'd think she would've caught us way earlier. 'S not like we've been particularly subtle." Dean replies, grinning wryly.

Hermione seems to think on this for a while, again fiddling with her wand in her (non damaged) hand. "Ron still thinks I'm mental for it, he thinks I'm doing it to provoke Umbridge on purpose, and maybe it's- maybe it's _partially_ true but mostly it _helps._ It helps me feel like the world isn't just dark lords and oncoming battles and- and-"

"It's alright, Hermione, I get it." Dean cuts in, gently, when he notices Hermione's cheeks flushing as she gets caught up in her words. "If anyone needs to let off some steam, it's you, I reckon."

The wand in Hermione's hand begins to pick up speed, even as she ducks her head in embarrassment. "Have I been that obvious?"

Dean shrugs, even though she isn't watching. "You always get a bit frazzled towards the end of the year, so it isn't as if we haven't seen you stressed before. And no can blame you for getting started a bit early this year."

Hermione groans, even as she tosses her wand up in a perfect arc and catches it without looking. Dean watches, as usual, always stunned at the level of dexterity she possesses. Then he picks up his own wand as he grabs one of Umbridge's knick knacks off her desk. He transfigures the black cat figurine into a figure that looks more like a miniature Hermione rather than a cat, and then levitates it over to her desk.

Hermione mumbles a quiet little _What?_ as she reaches out for her figurine lookalike, but before she can grasp it Dean has it floating just out of her reach, bouncing it up and down in the air in front of her face and laughing. She was definitely distracted, even for just a moment, but all the same the wand stays in motion in her hand, not faltering for even a second.

"You've got to be using magic." Dean grumbles, frowning, as he lets the figurine drop onto her desk with a clatter.

A laugh escapes from Hermione's lips, and she finally raises her head up to look at Dean. "Not using any magic, I'm afraid. You're going to have to get more creative than that if you want to properly distract me, Dean."

There's a lovely flush on Hermione's face, her smile slotting in perfectly with her pink cheeks and bright eyes. Dean supposes if he hadn't fallen for her days ago when he managed to tie her hair into knots around her head and she froze him with a silent _petrificus totalus_ even as her wand kept moving between her fingers, he would've definitely fell in this moment, now.

Before he can properly second guess his own thoughts, he pushes away from the desk and walks over until he's behind Umbridge's desk, facing Hermione directly.

"What are you doing? Umbridge will be back any minute, you can't-"

Dean leans all the way across the table before Hermione can finish her sentence, his fingers brushing against her chin as he pauses for a moment, waiting for her to pull away or to hex him. When she doesn't do anything other than widen her eyes and gasp, he presses forward.

When he first imagined doing this, he hadn't accounted for the length of the desk and the fact that it would be digging into his stomach uncomfortably. All he'd thought about was kissing her, and really, it was enough to distract him from the sensation of wood pressing hard against his middle. Hermione's lips were a bit chapped, and for the first two seconds of the kiss they hadn't moved at all, but then the shock wore off and then there was nothing Dean could think about but the feel of her kissing him back.

Vaguely he registers the sound of something hitting the floor, but he doesn't stop kissing Hermione until there's a squeaking sort of noise by the door, and then he pulls away and opens his eyes finally to Umbridge standing by the doorway, looking enraged.

"You- You- I cannot believe-" Umbridge sputters, growing redder by each passing moment.

Hermione snorts somewhat ungracefully, and Dean just grins dumbly. They both make a run for it before Umbridge can get her wits back about her, and he laughs as she curses all the way back to the common room.

"You dropped your wand, didn't you?" He asks, when they're finally back in the safety of a mostly empty common room.

She rolls her eyes at the smug expression on his face, though she remains smiling. "Oh, yes, fine. You've done it, you've finally got the better of me."

"If I'd have known all it would take was a kiss, I'd have done it earlier." He says, taking delight in the way she blushes bright pink again.

He's pretty sure Umbridge is definitely going to have it out for him now, but as he pulls Hermione in to kiss her again, he can't find it in himself to care about it very much.

*

Later, after an indefinite amount of detentions and kissing and then the fight and the war and the aftermath, Hermione picks up a baton.

"Told you you'd be good at it." Dean remarks, watching as Hermione handles her new baton the way he's been watching her handle her wand for years.

Hermione scoffs. "I'm not good yet, have you seen those videos of actual baton twirlers? Or the Majorettes, even? I can't do half the things they can do."

"You've only just started, love, give it some time. I'm sure you're more than qualified for a beginner." Dean says, still marvelling at the sight of Hermione in her wedding dress and tossing a baton around.

When she'd told him earlier she had a surprise for him after the wedding, this was certainly not what he'd been expecting.

Hermione fumbles with the baton, and it falls with a thud, making Hermione huff with frustration and Dean chuckle in amusement. Before Hermione could bend down to pick it up again, Dean's snaking his arm around her waist and pulls her to his chest.

"What would you say to wearing one of those sparkly leotards next time, hm?" Dean asks, smiling at the way she rolls her eyes. "To complete the whole picture?"

Hermione places a soft, sweet kiss on his lips and says _No._

**Author's Note:**

> Had an idea in my head that Hermione likes to fiddle with her wand absentmindedly when she's thinking, and it leads to her being scarily good at twisting it around like a baton twirler would do with a baton, and it lead me to thinking that Dean might see it and make the connection and then well... it spiralled from there.


End file.
